*laughs*Really now- I wouldn't mind that sort of introduction. I'm pretty flexible when it comes to the rules and what people would like to set up. Essentially, whatever you guys decide on, I'll be there as future!Necrim- I mean, what? I am cool with what lumi suggested- giving everyone some time to adjust to each other before we roll out with plot.

And speaking of plot-is this something we'd like to discuss after introductions have been made or is this going to be a free for all? Either way, I'm sure it'll be fun.

StillAlive wrote:*laughs*Really now- I wouldn't mind that sort of introduction. I'm pretty flexible when it comes to the rules and what people would like to set up. Essentially, whatever you guys decide on, I'll be there as future!Necrim- I mean, what? I am cool with what lumi suggested- giving everyone some time to adjust to each other before we roll out with plot.

And speaking of plot-is this something we'd like to discuss after introductions have been made or is this going to be a free for all? Either way, I'm sure it'll be fun.

Essentially free for all, with limits based on, you know, common sense. Don't blow up the town, don't kill gods, don't interfere too much with the DrowLove storyline. No godmoding, godmodding, or metagaming. Stay in character. Don't do things to other people's characters without permission, IE don't kill anyone. Other than that, go for it. :3

Odd how surprisingly uncommon 'common sense' is- but I know what you mean. Haven't been one for those sorts of things regardless, but it is always good to remind everyone from time to time. Whether we intend to or not, godmodding just seems to slip in there from time to time...I'm quite happy not blowing up towns- really, I was considering an evil character, though this individual wouldn't be the type for blatant acts of 'evil'.

StillAlive wrote:Odd how surprisingly uncommon 'common sense' is- but I know what you mean. Haven't been one for those sorts of things regardless, but it is always good to remind everyone from time to time. Whether we intend to or not, godmodding just seems to slip in there from time to time...I'm quite happy not blowing up towns- really, I was considering an evil character, though this individual wouldn't be the type for blatant acts of 'evil'.

Would an evil aligned character be alright? Mmm...

I don't think we can really put restrictions on alignment when we've got CE and NG in the same party in DrowLove. We need to keep party cohesion in mind most of the time, again as in DrowLove, where we've got guys trying to kill another guy but everyone still is able to stick together.

Basically, the players need to be totally aware and on board with any "secret plots" or whatever, even if the characters don't know about them.

That's agreeable.I've a cleric of Vecna I've been meaning to explore a bit more- he's not the outright violent type and really, death and killing is not foremost in his motives. He's more of a manipulator- people are more useful alive than dead. Most of the time.

StillAlive wrote:That's agreeable.I've a cleric of Vecna I've been meaning to explore a bit more- he's not the outright violent type and really, death and killing is not foremost in his motives. He's more of a manipulator- people are more useful alive than dead. Most of the time.

Vecna is secrets, too, so he probably isn't about to go about being all HEY EVERYONE!!!! I HAVE A SECRET AND/OR DARK PAST YOU SHOULDN'T ASK ABOUT!!!!!

I have a mage who can only use one spell but with that one spell he can summon an army of earth golems but top control them he must eiher be with visual range or by the use of an enchanted chess board.

Then is Have a Half-Elf Half-Dragon man by the name of Xar'th*, he speaks in the third person and is very powerfull despite his very short attention span. One minute he would be ready to kill and the next he is playing with a fork, his mind is highly randomized.

Mortality wrote:I have a mage who can only use one spell but with that one spell he can summon an army of earth golems but top control them he must eiher be with visual range or by the use of an enchanted chess board.

Then is Have a Half-Elf Half-Dragon man by the name of Xar'th*, he speaks in the third person and is very powerfull despite his very short attention span. One minute he would be ready to kill and the next he is playing with a fork, his mind is highly randomized.

Problems I see with these two characters off the top of my head

1. Both are too powerful for what we are aiming at. Err on the side of "blacksmith" instead of "godly demon being."

2. Mage is massively unbalanced. In the rare situation that spell is unusable, he'll be completely worthless. However, the chances of that weakness actually ever coming into play is like... infinitesimal. The fact that you list his powers instead of his personality implies that you are defining him by his abilities rather than who he is as a person.

3. I really hope that asterisk is a typo, because a name with an asterisk in it is pretty horrifying. This sounds like a very typical and very infuriating character concept, set up so that the player can do whatever "wacky" thing they want and just write it off as "durr he's so random! lol!" "Short attention span" is really not a good balance for "very powerful," and characters who speak in third person had better have a damn good reason for having never learned normal speech patterns.

:/ You're welcome to pitch ideas but really, wait until we have the requirements up, I would say, and you might be best off making a new character altogether. We're definitely imposing a pointbuy for skills, so "very powerful" is probably not going to be possible unless you want to dump every point into one stat, which will pretty much make a character who is bad at EVERYTHING ELSE.

For an example: Arinae. 24 dexterity, 8 wisdom.

Also keep in mind that in DrowLove storyline, we're pretty much in our very first fight right now. This isn't going to be a battle RP. You aren't going to be killing gods or fighting a war or destroying buildings. Make a character with an interesting personality, with the knowledge that you may never, ever, enter battle in this game.

Evil-aligned characters: Totally okay, although my impression of evil is much more "preserve and benefit yourself at the expense of others, who matter less," rather than "KILL DEATH RAPE BLOOD." The Magnificent Bastard over the Blood Knight, say. But we can argue endlessly about that one...

Stats: I don't mind point-buy stats as a tool to balance characters.

I would say think about your character's personality and background before what they can do -- for Maris, for instance, the first thing I think of for her is that she's a quick study that's too clever for her own good and jumps to conclusions; she's a jack of all trades that picks up facts and bits of knowledge like candy; she's bloody-minded, mouthy, and nastily practical. (So, you know, the average fantasy hero.) That's all before being skilled at polearms and dirty fighting and so on.

Some powerful characters are written well, like Morpheus in The Sandman. He's a decent example, being more powerful and ancient than any god, but the most flawed person in the series. Also, Watchmen's Dr. Manhattan/Jon is more or less a human god, but increasingly detached from humanity. They're not easy to do, though, and both Morpheus and Jon tend to fade into the background and let the other (often normal human) characters take the center stage. Both comics, I think, would have suffered if it was just all about them. When you're roleplaying, your character pretty much IS the main character to you, so copying those two is harder.

Personally, I very much prefer playing underpowered characters (Autem is, DnD-wise, a low-levelled fighter) because it creates a bigger challenge. It's more satisfying when mere mortals triumph odds rather than when a super magician blows up the attacking army without a hitch. I've never really played a proper DnD game, but I really want to do a campaign where everyone starts off as level 1 commoners because it would be fantastic (read: a horrorshow).

Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici"By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe."

@ Lumi: Yikes, that seemed kinda harsh, don't you think? I could easily see how both characters could work in the context of story- the mage who isn't really a mage, just has a supernatural ability to bring to life golems from the materials around him- I personally like the restriction of site being required (the chess board is a little strange, though- opinion held due to my not understanding how that aspect enhances or impedes the ability.) Golems can be used for fighting, yes, but they can also be used from an RP standpoint too- menial tasks, company for the deranged, etc. Also, consider that this is a powerful ability but the fun part is that to entirely disable it, all that is needed is a blindfold. Sounds like fun.

And as for the half-breed, the balance of powerful physically but not-powerful mentally is classic. Powerful person who can't stay focused long enough to do long-lasting damage. And, hell, if (*) isn't going to work, replace it with a ('). Perfectly legitimate naming convention. And third person talking? Eeeh, whatever. If it floats a boat, it doesn't bother me. If you wanted to logic it out, I guess you could say it's a habit carried over from another language that the character probably speaks more comfortably.

I wouldn't shoot down character proposals so quickly. If someone comes into the story being too strong or strange, we'll probably be relaxed enough to even things out before the plot gets too far along.

THAT BEING SAID:

"Low level" characters are more relatable. Reader empathy is crucial to entertainment, so overall, it would be my suggestion to start with characters more human in nature. Eventually they may gain special abilities, and watching them grow and change in relation to these abilities is much more fun than starting off that way.

Anyway, as far as potential character is concerned, I'm probably not going to know until I see a couple of other characters start to interact. I tend to enjoy coming up with characters designed to balance out party dynamics, so I'd need to see what there is to work with before I can say. Knowing me, though, I probably won't have a strange race- something right from the PH is what I enjoy most.

Mortality wrote:I have a mage who can only use one spell but with that one spell he can summon an army of earth golems but top control them he must eiher be with visual range or by the use of an enchanted chess board.

Then is Have a Half-Elf Half-Dragon man by the name of Xar'th*, he speaks in the third person and is very powerfull despite his very short attention span. One minute he would be ready to kill and the next he is playing with a fork, his mind is highly randomized.

I do admit, he seems like a fun character to play, particularly in a tabletop situation where everything is more quantified and abilities are clearly laid out. ; one of my first DnD characters was a were-rat elf half silverdragon.

Unfortunately, I do think that lumi has a point here. When you have a trait like "Has a really strong ability but is otherwise harmless" you end up with a sort of problem, since now your character is either REALLY weak, or REALLY strong all the time, and neither situation is really a good place to be in a text based RP. I know I'm avoiding bringing in a number of my characters because they are either: Too quiet or too loud and low level. My Kobold, Otter, is really one of the MOST fun characters I've ever rped with, but I don't think he QUITE fits this situation because he's an annoying PEST and he would likely DIE right off the bat or need someone to be constantly protecting him . Admittedly, I think I'll jump into the group a bit late to judge what types of characters I feel would contribute to the party most. So far I think I might be leaning towards making a brand new character, since I wanna make sure my guy fits the, um, "jive" of the party, so to speak .

Anyway, I'd love for people to start making a thread and scribbling out character ideas just so we can start feeling out what this group is :> I honestly find character creation much more rewarding if my character starts out as nothing and then slowly grows to being something much more X3 (Flan gains about 3 levels during the first few days in DL :3!)

also@lumi: I'm not QUITE sure how I feel about a point buy - I do like it in theory, but I know it make ME really wanna minmax like crazy . And when I start minmaxing I start thinking more about skill sets and less about personalities and flaws and such . I know when I get pointbuy systems all my characters end up being, like, Str: 20, Dex: 20, Wis:1 Cha:1 ;

I'm... really stumped on what a better system would be ; I'd like to reduce the size of the numbers and the amount of numbers if possible, particularly since I don't wanna alienate anyone who hasn't played DnD :<.

A Moon Elf named OrbandisHe's fast at running away and he needs it because of him being a thief; he is clumy when running and tend to trip or slide, this helps him at times

A Drow Berserker named DirgHe is strong and dangerous, he is not very smart (Intel of 4)

A Dark Elf named FoxeyesShe is an Archer with considerable skill, she is seen with Almaari constantly and even enjoy sleeping outside with him

A Drider named AlmaariHe is a Pikeman and he is a powerful opponent in medium range combat, He is Foxeyes true love

A Human named MortalMortal is a Swordsman, he has a mysterius past and seems to use poson in everything (Stats are even)

Oh, cool! Yeah, I like how these guys are considerably less strong. That lets you focus on the personality play more I think, and I'm pretty excited. :3 I think I'm most excited about your Thief character (not just because I have a soft spot for thieves). I'm curious what you mean by clumsy, yet fast X3.

I'd love to hear more about the emotional traits etc that these guys have, but I know I rarely know the personalities of my characters until I start trying to talk as them

I'll see about drawing up a map of the island, and working on a small sheet for my character. I like the intro idea and the ability to keep the drowlove characters discrete. I for one do not want to RP and epic adventure with Drea here. So please don't ask me too, if you want to talk to him please be prepared to be either ignored and punched. Drea dose not like talking to the people in Coral Island and also remember he is well known there.

You can play an employee of Karrs talk to me later to get the rules for that. The Island can host a variety of creatures and people. It tends towards a more evil town, so please if you play a paladin of Palor don't rush into Karrs's tower to kill him. Because he's so powerful he was never given a level by our DM. We just learned not to fuck with him.

And Morality: Driders are angry angry angry people who tend to shy away from others, they are usually Drow males who have been punished or failed the Test. They eat people like vampire/spiders. They are very very unlikely to fall in love with anyone, much less give you the time of day. But there are exceptions. Even on the Island Driders are still un-liked outsiders as there are a lot of drow merchants in town.

But please remember to respect the other players, ask before giving bodily harm to anothers character first, don't godmode to the point your controlling there character. No sex. No cybering. No arguing. No trolling. And attempt to keep up, please don't leave people waiting with out and excuse. If you leave please say so and bow out gracefully.

As for the sheets I'm don't think point buys are really good for this type of thing. Set a level preferably below 10, a class, and feats. then describe your character if you want. But mostly I say go for in game descriptions, meet the characters threw your own character. But that's just me.

So... where can we start posting applications? And, just because I have all these books and nothing to do with them anymore, what edition does drowlove lean more toward? I'm assuming 3rd, but I'm not entirely sure.